


Because I Am Made of Scars

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Romance if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1359640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emily has a bad day and since she still won't add insult to injury after the Doyle fiasco, there's only one person she can go to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because I Am Made of Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Just a Little of that Human Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352131) by [Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna). 



> Because kaybee2488 over on FF.net asked for the 'scars' scene alluded to in Just a Little of that Human Touch. Don't worry, you don't have to read that.

It's after the events surrounding Ian Doyle.

He thinks that maybe it's that more than anything that draws her to him. She's been careful since her return, not burdening anyone she doesn't have to. Then he'd made her promise to come to him on bad days and, well, he knows that's what this is. This is Emily not wanting to burden JJ more than she has, that can't go to anyone else, not Reid or Rossi (because they'd thought she was dead) not Garcia (because she'd hover) and most definitely not Morgan (who is definitely still mad at her).

It had left her with him.

Not that he actually thinks that's the way she's thought of it. On the contrary, he'd bet that she'd thought this over, probably even talked herself out of it once or twice. Not because it would burden him, but because it's become more obvious since her return that whatever had been simmering between them before Doyle could now just utterly explode.

He's felt it. Of course he has. This is Emily, and she is strong, smart, beautiful and a complete enigma. She's compassionate and a hardass, hot as hell with a gun and strikingly gorgeous when she goofs around with Jack or Henry. He's not oblivious to her or her hold on him and he's pretty sure she's not blind either. But they also have a million reasons why it would never work, why it will never work and he knows, plain and simple, neither of them will jeopardize that for anything.

That doesn't mean he's going to turn her away when she shows up at his apartment with vodka and a sadness in her eyes he abhors. It's impossible for him to turn her away and whether she knows that or not becomes a moot point when he steps back to allow her into his apartment.

"Sorry," she says quietly.

He shakes his head. She should never have to apologize. They had this relationship before Doyle, though he'll admit in the privacy of his thoughts that it worked in the reverse then. The least he can do for her now, both because he's emotionally invested in her and because she did it for him. There isn't even a question.

"Jack?"

"Sleepover," he answers heading for the kitchen. He pulls the requisite glasses down and joins her on the couch.

The way this works is, well, mostly silent. They tip back shot glasses, not caring and he's more than a little inebriated faster than he'd like. He thinks maybe it's a bit her fault because whatever's bothering her is something big. She's drinking the vodka like water and he hates this part of her. He doesn't question it though, because it's not his place and he knows this isn't routine. It's an aberration and maybe it's that more than the pain that has his heart clenching in his chest.

He knows she's drunk when she reaches over, gripping his wrist and turning over his arm. It dawns on him that he's rarely in anything other than full G-man suit that the t-shirt is probably strange to her. But her fingers are tracing over something entirely different, a faint white line that runs up his arm. He's had it for decades.

"Knife fight?"

He snorts. He's drunk. "Tree fight. The tree won."

She nods sagely, her eyes deathly serious. Then she pulls her hair aside, turns her back just a little. The scar can't be more than half an inch. It's a tiny thing. "Knife fight."

"No."

There's a low chuckle in her voice. "Before-"

Doyle. He can put the math together.

"Interpol?"

She hums, then turns back to him. "What else?"

He ponders her a moment, then reaches down, pulls up the cuff of his sweatpants. He's got an anklebone that's a bit deformed. "SWAT. Bomb squad wasn't fast enough. All of us took shrapnel."

He gets that nod again, all but watches her file the information away. She chews her lip for a moment then lifts her own pant leg.

"They match," she says, ghosting fingers over a thin, raised white line. "Case went very, very, very wrong. So wrong. Wire hurts."

She's more drunk than he is, apparently. Her sentences get shorter the more intoxicated she is, like her command of the English language breaks down completely. He's seen the beginnings of it, but never this far, never this deep. He's trying with all his might not to read into it. He can't, he shouldn't.

He won't.

He is.

She's losing it; she's lost it, whatever tense fits. Whatever's going on in her head isn't good and for the first time since she's shown up, he's honestly a little bit nervous. He shouldn't have started drinking, he realizes, because she's well past the point of making good decisions and he's creeping quickly there himself. He knows because he can smell her, can feel the heat of her arm half an inch from his. Because he'd wanted to reach out when she'd had her back turned and apply lips, tongue and teeth to the nape of her neck.

But she's looking up at him, waiting. It's his turn. He has to think for a minute, then turns his foot upside down. It's a tiny little thing, circular, but there.

"Summer vacation. We took a spur-of-the-moment trip up to Buffalo. We were on a beach on the lake and I stepped on a nail."

She hisses.

He shrugs. "Didn't hurt. Went right though. Didn't hit anything."

He doesn't tell her that the nail had been in a board and his mother had driven him to the hospital with his foot hanging out of the window. That had been embarrassing. The tetanus shot had been painful.

The sheer number of scars between them isn't as surprising as it probably should be. She's got one on her lower back – her own shrapnel story – and he traces one through his sweatpants from his own version of a case gone wrong. She's got a really nasty set from a fence in Eastern Europe and a bite mark from a dog in her rebellious high school years. Hilariously, he has a squirrel bite to match. They're a patchwork, not like they'd be anything else.

And then, then it gets… Better. Worse. He's really not sure which. And he's very, very drunk because he doesn't stop her when she reaches for her sweater. It comes over her head and the camisole underneath is silk. Satin. Whatever. The point is it shimmers in the low light of his apartment and his eyes are drawn to the way it clings above her hips, the curve of her chest. And that's where her fingers are, tracing over something.

"Doyle."

He's never seen it. Not when they ripped her shirt off, not when they had her in the hospital gown, and never in the ensuing aftermath, even with the sometimes low-cut sweaters. He can see it now though. Four-leaf clover, a calling card, he knows.

"It burned," she whispers. "I don't- I've been through a lot. In my life, I mean. But nothing… Nothing felt like this. Nothing could ever feel like this."

He swallows. Holy shit.

"I thought about getting rid of it," she goes on. Her voice is choked. So choked. She can barely hold onto it. "Talked to Jayje about it, you know. But. It's like my tattoo. It marks something in my life. Something big. Something real."

Yeah. He can see that. The way she'd gone after him, the way she'd hunted him… So much more. There's more to her. There's always been more to her. He doesn't think that Emily Prentiss, no matter what persona she chooses to adopt, could give anything less than her all. No matter how she thinks about it, no matter how she looks at it, she loved Doyle, he thinks.

"I couldn't go through with it."

Now it's his turn to nod slowly, his eyes fixed on the way her fingers slide over the raised scar. He's human, and not stupid, so maybe it's not totally about that scar. She's a beautiful woman, always has been, even when she was completely and entirely untouchable.

Which, he has to remind himself, she also is now.

But it's his turn, tit for tat, and he finds himself lifting his t-shirt before his conscious brain catches up. It's already half way up by the time the alarm bells start sounding; by the time he tugs it over his head, it's too late. He's in it now and much like her, he doesn't do things by halves.

"Come here."

He needs better light, and he has to stand at the right angle. The scars kind of crisscross his lower abdomen, faint now, after years, but sometimes he can still feel them. They shine silver as the light hits them and as he looks up at her, he knows he doesn't need to tell her where they're from. Her hands ghost over Foyet's marks. Her face is flushed, her eyes on the way her fingers play across his abs. His breath catches. She's so close, he can smell her and his hands come up to her hips. Her inhale is audible, almost loud in his ears. The alcohol is clouding his brain, he knows that, but she's there, her camisole is soft.

Then there's that moment, the one that all the novels speak of – and he's not a romantic reader by any extent, but Haley had been and he's not stupid enough not to see it – where they're sitting on a precipice. One move one way and he knows, clear as day, that they'll end up naked in his bed and the other, they'll walk away and put it in a little box. He doesn't know which way he wants to go, doesn't want to spook her, doesn't want to push her-

"I should go."

She makes the decision, of course she does. She has more to lose, he knows. He takes a strange, twisted solace from the regret in her face, the knowledge that she wants it, even if they really,  _really_ shouldn't.

"You should." But he can't make his hands move, can't stop staring down into the darkness of her eyes. She'd be beautiful under him, he knows.

She's the one that sighs again, wraps her hands around his wrists and removes them from her hips. "Going, Hotch."

"Right."

But he doesn't step back. He knows he should, wants to make himself even, but his legs won't move. If they do, he knows it won't be to get out of her way. He'll weather the disappointment in her eyes because it's better than regret. And even if they both want it, doing anything other than letting her leave would be a capital-R Regret. Still, when she makes her way around him her arm brushes his, calculated, and he has to bite his cheek to reign in the need clawing at his stomach. He keeps his back turned as he hears her put on her shoes, shrug on her coat.

"See you tomorrow, Hotch."

He blows out a breath. His dignity's intact.

Now he just has to hope their relationship is too.


End file.
